"Don't look at me like that, Arran," Hop said, using his wounded dignity voice. "I'm only holding you twenty percent against the wall. He's responsible for eighty percent."
She didn't answer. Jazz ignored Hop, too, and so he stood holding Arran's hand as Jazz asked her, "Which way from here?"
She didn't answer.
"I know you have a hiding place, Arran. The reason those soldiers were there is because the test on the poison came out positive and they got mad. Want me to take you down there to them?"
She shook her head.
"Then where's the hiding place?"
Hop watched as Jazz stared at her eyes, as if hoping to pluck the answers out of them. Apparently Arran saw a different intent, and she let her eyes fill up with tears. A play for sympathy, Hop knew, but it didn't stop him from feeling instant pity. The bitch. Actresses shouldn't be allowed to have private lives. They didn't know how to stop acting.
Abruptly Jazz jerked her away from the wall and slung her over his shoulder again. Sighing wearily, Hop followed him off down a corridor.
The halls were narrower up here, Hop noticed, and the floors and walls were made of wood. He touched one, and was surprised at the roughness. Not just wood, then. Real wood. He whistled.
"Shut up," Jazz said.
"Why so glum?" Hop asked. "A billion men would give their privates to have her over their shoulder wearing that costume. Though that would rather defeat the purpose, wouldn't it?"
Jazz didn't laugh, and so Hop shut up.
They stopped in front of a rather insignificantlooking door. "What's in here?" Jazz asked.
"A wardrobe," she said immediately.
"Can you break it open, Hop?"
"Me?"
"Forget it," Jazz said. He stepped back and, still burdened with Arran, kicked the door. It budged, but just barely.
"Let me," Hop said, now that he was sure there was no sentry planted in the door. No sense getting blown up unnecessarily. Jazz may be a meal ticket, but keeping him alive would be pointless to Hop if Hop weren't around to get his twenty percent. He stood facing the opposite wall of the narrow corridor, his hands firmly placed on the wall. Then he jumped up and pushed off from the wall, slamming his feet into the door. It didn't quite break free, but all it took was another halfhearted kick from Noyock as he lay on the floor.
"Spectacular," Jazz said as he stepped over Noyock and walked into the room. "You're very agile for a fat man."
"Paunch covers muscle, it doesn't replace it," Hop commented, and got up. The "wardrobe" was a large library, with mirrors wherever there were no shelves, including the floor and ceiling. But the real attraction was the contents of the shelves — real paper books, not tapes, filling every available space. Noyock wasn't much of a reader, but he appreciated value in whatever form it took, and under his breath he mumbled, "The lady's literate, after all."
Jazz paid no attention. Instead he picked Arran off his shoulders and tossed her to the floor. She landed heavily.
"Where's the door?" he heard Jazz say. Arran shook her head, wincing with some pain she acquired in the fall to the floor. Jazz shook her, and she started to cry. Hop hated himself, but the crying made him want to say, "Hey, Jazz, go easy on the woman, huh?" He resisted the impulse, however.
So did Jazz, if indeed he felt such a charitable feeling. Instead, he doubled up his fist and plunged it sharply into Arran's stomach. Hop was sure he heard a rib break. She screamed in pain, and Hop wondered if it was the first honest emotion he had seen her use.
Jazz leaned down and put his ear by her lips. Hop was surprised she was conscious — but apparently she had been for at least a moment, for Jason got up and walked straight to a bookshelf and pulled off two books, reaching behind to find something. Immediately a mirror slid into the floor, and a little room was revealed behind. Jazz walked back to Arran, picked her up, and carried her limp unconscious body into the room. Noyock decided to follow.
As soon as they were inside, Jason lay Arran down on the floor. "Find a light switch," Jazz said, but before Noyock could even glance around, the door slid back up, cutting off all light.
"And I suppose you didn't think to bring a candle," Jason said.
"Next time I'll do better," Hop answered.
"A lighter?"
"You know I don't poison myself, Jazz, why would I carry fire with me?" Not that Hop hadn't once junked himself, but he had long since decided long life took precedence over fleeting pleasures, like smoking. That decision had made him feel like a puritan for months. Now he regretted it again.
They stood in the darkness for a while. Then Hop offered to prowl around and see what he could feel.
"Don't even twitch," Jazz said. "There may be some nasty surprises in here."
They waited awhile more. "Has it been three years yet, Jazz, or only two?" Hop asked.
"About four minutes. Give the lady a chance to wake up."
"I think you broke a rib."
"I hope so. The bitch deserved to lose her head."
"But she never did lose it, did she."
"Quiet. She's waking up."
Arran groaned, and Noyock wasn't even surprised that the moan was vaguely seductive. She could hardly be expected to lose lifetime habits all at once.
"Don't move around too much, Arran," Jazz said softly. "Your rib is broken, and you're in the secret room behind the mirror in the library."
"How did you find the door!"
"You told me."
"I never —"
Jazz slapped her, and she cried out. Hop began to feel a little bit disturbed at the way his meal ticket was acting. Cruelty should have some point, Hop firmly believed.
Jazz hissed at her, "You've lied every moment since we first met tonight. You tried to kill me. I want to know why."
Silence. Then another slap, another cry of pain.
"Dammit, Jazz, stop it!" Hop said.
"I've got to know what I'm up against, Hop. There's a lot she isn't telling me. Like the fact that she has a friend named Farl Baak, a Cabinet minis ter, who for some absurd reason wants me dead."
She gasped.
"I didn't come to your party ignorantly, Arran. Now you can start telling us things. For instance, you might start by telling me how to turn the lights on in here."
"Right by the door," she said.
Hop stepped in the direction he remembered the door was in, but Jazz's voice cut through the darkness. "Don't touch it! Stop where you are, Hop!" Hop stayed where he was. He heard Arran groan in fear — whatever Jazz was doing she didn't like. "Clever trap, Arran," Jason said. "But I'll start feeding you your fingers in small sections if you don't start cooperating."
Another groan of fear and pain, and Arran shouted, "Stop it! Stop it — the light's in the far right corner as you come in, at about knee height —"
The light went on. Jazz was still holding Arran's hand, tightly, while his other hand was extended to touch the spot she had described. Noyock turned from them to examine the door. "Where's the trap?" he asked.
"A metal plate under the wallcoat," Jazz said. "How many volts, Arran?"
"Enough," Arran answered. "I wish it had fried you."
"Hit her once for me," Noyock said. "Suddenly I'm not in love with her anymore."
"I'll be glad to oblige you," Jazz said, "in just about one second if Arran doesn't tell me why Farl Baak wants me dead."
She shook her head. "I never heard of Farl Baak."
"Just because nobody looped it doesn't mean it didn't happen," Jazz said.
"I didn't know the drink was poisoned," she said. Jazz slapped her hard, on the growing bruise at the bottom of her rib cage. She cried out, swung her arm to try to hit him, but was stopped by the pain. He slapped her again. She cried out again in pain, and tears flowed out the corners of her eyes, dribbling down into her ears and hair. These tears, Hop realized in surprise, were involuntary.